All Work
This Stinks!
When you bring a new baby home, the new smells and sounds can be extremely overwhelming and upsetting to a dog. With no way to gradually prepare them, many dogs act out — and many families make the heartbreaking decision to give them up.
The insight: a dog's primary sense is smell. So what if you introduced those smells first?
What I Did
Conceived and developed This Stinks! — a sniffable story that gets dogs ready for babies. The book uses scent-infused, detachable pages to gradually introduce a dog to every smell they'll encounter when a new baby comes home: baby powder, baby shampoo, milk, and more.
Designed entirely dog-first — from the color palette (limited to what dogs can actually see) to the page structure (built on dog training logic: repetition, small steps, rewards). On its surface, it looks like a charming baby board book. Underneath, it's a behavior system.
Wrote and art-directed the story in both English and Spanish. Managed illustration direction, scent technology sourcing, print production, and the full design system end-to-end.
Idea Sell Video
A dog's primary sense is smell. So instead of a training class, we made a book. A sniffable one.
Built on the logic of how you actually train a dog — gradually, with repetition, with rewards.
The book has scent-infused pages for each smell a dog will encounter. The pages are detachable so you can give them to your dog one at a time, gradually introducing each new smell ahead of the baby's arrival. Dog Chow treats serve as reward for encouragement throughout.
The last page is a cloth you take to the hospital — so your dog can smell your baby before they ever meet.
Dog-First Design
Everything about this book's functionality and design is intentionally crafted to be dog-first. For example, the color palette is limited to the colors dogs can actually see — yellows and blue-grays — not the colors humans prefer.
Secondarily, we've written a charming story for the human's enjoyment, too. A cautionary tale from a pup's perspective, published in both English and Spanish.
4 Principles of Dog-Centered Design
Story for Awareness
While the book is designed to be dog-centered, we also wanted to make it easy and engaging for parents-to-be to use. On its surface it looks like a baby board book — something that could easily live on a nursery bookshelf.
Underneath: a charming cautionary tale from a pup's perspective, explaining why this preparation matters. The story works equally well as a read-aloud for expectant parents as it does as a scent training tool for their dog.
Written and illustrated in both English and Spanish.
The Sniffable Story
It is primarily a sniffable story — crafted around telling the narrative via the scent that is infused in certain pages. Those pages can be detached to gradually expose the dog to each new smell, one at a time.
The scent sequencing mirrors the emotional arc of the story: familiar smells first, building toward the most unfamiliar — and ultimately, the baby's own scent on the final cloth page.
The Book
Rough engagement pages — the full story, spread by spread.
The Result
This Stinks! demonstrates end-to-end creative capability: identifying a real behavioral insight, designing a product system around it, executing across illustration, copy, print production, and scent technology — in two languages.
The dog-centered design framework and sniffable story structure are original. So is the problem it solves.